How to Eliminate Spam Email, Tested in Michigan USA, and BC and Ontario Canada
You can learn how to stop spam email. Spam email is unsolicited electronic messages that are frequently sent in bulk. It usually advertises some commercial product or service. Besides the obvious reasons why you would want to learn about how to stop spam email from filling up your inbox, your ISP also wants to stop spam email because they must invest in additional hardware and personnel to handle the huge amounts of spam email that slow down their servers.
Our first focus will be on finding ways to stop spam email that is BUCE (Bulk Unsolicited Commercial Email) -- all that junk email that we know we have never requested.
So how do we stop spam email and at what cost?
Spam email can be very expensive, not just in lost time, but in direct
and indirect financial costs. For example:
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When
traveling, you probably use a web-based email service,
right? Be extra cautious to whom you give that email address,
or else your inbox can fill up with Spam email so fast that
you won't have room to receive important messages relating
you your business - and that can be disastrously expensive.
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For international travellers, even local calls for Internet
dialup are not usually free, and foreign ISP accounts are
expensive and often do not offer very good security features
from Spammers. You will want to find a way to stop spam
email from filling up your web-based email inbox so you
will be able to receive your real messages.
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Sneaky
spam scam artists often try to hide their tracks to avoid
being zapped from the Web, by using insecure
servers, which can easily be overloaded by these sleazy
operators, increasing maintenance costs for the ISP's who
own those servers.
There is no such thing as legitimate spam. If it was okay to send unsolicited messages to anyone you wanted, you could end up getting emails from every company with whom
you've ever done business. Millions of people would just quit
using email altogether. That would mean going back to more expensive
postal mail just to keep in touch with your customers.
So how do you send mail that is not confused with spam?
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Use a confirmation
letter: -- Responsible marketers should use
software that automatically generates a confirmation letter
when people request more information.
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 Stop Spam Email From Increasing Your Emailing Costs
I recently surveyed several friends after they
had kept track of their spam for one week. For every 10 Spam
messages received, here is what they got:
- 4 for pornographic
sites (Click here for XXX)
- 2 for sexual performance drugs
- 2 for mortgage loans
- 1 for some
Get Rich Quick scheme
- 1 chain mail letter
It's important to stop Spam email like this because it adds up
in terms of time and money. Even with low long-distance charges,
hotels tend to charge a premium. If you're outside North America,
even a local call can be costly.
 International costs are high
I know of an instance where a travelling business person paid
$57 US for the privilege of downloading junky spam email. If
you truly want to stop Spam email, complain to all of the Spammers'
ISPs and before long you'll start getting emails from those
service providers thanking you for letting them know about the
spammers using their servers. Nothing feels better than receiving
an email that reads: "Thank you for helping us stop Spam email.
This user's mail ID/Web site has been deleted for spamming.
Sorry for the inconvenience."
Many companies set up a mail server to provide free e-mail accounts
to all of their employees. Taking all costs into account, it
costs the company roughly 2 cents to send or receive an e-mail.
Doesn't sound like much, but read on.
A Spring, 2007 survey that polled several ISPs (including
biggies such as AOL) estimated that 85% of the mail coming
into/going out of their servers was Spam (up from 60% at
the beginning of 2004).
Sure, you don't pay anything for email, but a lot of people do, thanks to the skewed economics of the Internet. Unlike postal mail, for which the entire cost is borne by the marketer, there is generally no per-message charge to send e-mail: It's included in your ISP's bill (or is free).
This
is excellent for people who want to keep in touch with friends
and relatives, but the economics naturally lend themselves to
abuse. In order to send out a million messages, all a Spammer
needs is an Internet account, a list of e-mail addresses of
various people (none of whom asked for his junky spam email
in the first place), and a computer (though if this sounds good
and you're considering it, it can take a day to send
that much mail, even going round the clock, and most ISPs won't
put up with this and will turn off your account).
 Expensive Junk - Let's Stop Spam Email
According
to a survey conducted by ChooseYourMail.com, pornographers are
responsible for 30.2% of the spam on the 'Net today. Just behind
them are the "Get Rich Quick" and "Make Money Fast" scam artists,
who send about 29.6 % of the spam. The remainder advertises
assorted products and services; a small percentage illegally
offer stock tips (for junk stocks of dubious value).
As stated earlier, most ISPs want to stop spam email and forbid spamming. They even disconnect the Internet accounts and Web sites of any Spammer. So, spammers often attempt to cover their tracks by sending mail through insecure servers around the world instead of their ISPs' mail servers. This passes on most of the cost to the insecure server's owner, who has to clear up the mess caused by the spammer while legitimate email reaching its users is blocked in a mammoth traffic jam. Most of the "bulk mail" and "stealth mail" software you come across does this.
Do We Need to Stop Spam Email Totally
Recently, a disturbing trend has cropped up. Even legitimate, reputable
companies have started sending Spam email. The real problem
in the coming year won't be from fly-by-night crooks and scam
artists; it will be from legitimate companies that view Spam
email (or unsolicited bulk e-mail) as a way to market themselves
more effectively.
A carpenter friend of mine in Victoria, British Columbia recently got a huge spam email from a marketing company advertising a "Venture Capital
for IT" seminar in New Zealand. A copy of this spam reached
a few other people I know, most or all of whom had never asked
for it or wanted it in the first place. One recipient was the
abuse desk of a small telemarketing company in Quebec, an unlikely
group to be interested in the seminar being held in New Zealand.
No Excuse for Spam Email
 The company made several pathetic statements in its spam email, which are, unfortunately, still believed by several marketers
who think email is just like postal mail.
"You are receiving this mail because you happen to be in the industry and we view you as a very important and focused client, or you chose to subscribe to our mailing list or were added by a friend".
What they are saying is that you are forced to receive their spam
email just because you have an email address. You never asked
for their spam email and never wanted it in the first place.
I have a strong objection to paying my ISP just for the privilege
of downloading spam email.
As
for the last excuse, all responsible marketers are supposed
to send a confirmation mail to the address from which a "subscription
request" was received. "OK", you now say, "I
get over a hundred people subscribing to my list every week!
I can't email each one of them asking if they really want to
subscribe." That's what software is for. Many email systems
can send automatic replies based on "TO:" or "Subject"
areas in the message.
This confirmation is a standard feature in most automated mailing
list software (the professional grade, heavy duty ones such
as Majordomo/Listserv, as well as the free Web-based lists such
as eGroups (http://www.egroups.com) and Topica (http://www.topica.com).
It is more ethical, and it saves you from some embarrassing
situations.
Some systems make the mistake of saying, "To subscribe or add a friend,
just send us an email and type out the name and email address
of the person who should be added to our list."
By doing so, marketers are saying they will add any and every email
address they get to their list, without confirming whether the
person wants their sales pitch or not. This is extremely unethical,
and rather dangerous.
It's dangerous because it leaves you liable to charges that you are
a spammer if the person you added to your list is not interested
and perhaps complains to your ISP. So don't be an idiot just
because you could easily sign up addresses such as<president@whitehouse.gov>
and <billgates@microsoft.com>
and arrange for Mr. Bush and Mr. Gates to get your spam email,
because the response could be very bad. A complaint to your
ISP from the White House can leave you wondering where your
beautiful Web site has gone. So if you don't want to find out
what the most powerful man in the world would do to you if you
sent him spam email -- take Bill Gates of your mailing list.
To unsubscribe—say what you mean
"To unsubscribe send an email to the following address.''
Please, be sure your Reply-to address is a working address, and
that you actually unsubscribe people when they ask. A lot of
spam email senders use fake addresses, so your response gets
returned to you.
Would you trust a company's products or services if they treated you
this way? Probably not. spam email can hurt your business more
than it helps.
Many people get really angry when they receive unsolicited spam email.
They say, "I never subscribed to this so called 'mailing
list' in the first place. I never asked to receive this sales
pitch. Now, why should I unsubscribe from a list I never subscribed
to in the first place?" So instead, they choose to mail
the ISP of the person who sent the e-mail, complaining that
this person is a spammer.
Unsubscribe made easy
All legitimate, opt-in mailing lists (that is, a list to which all the members subscribed on their own and were not added arbitrarily) need a clear, simple way to unsubscribe.
Every
post (email message) you send to the people on your mailing
list must have a clear and simple way to unsubscribe, either
by mailing to a certain address or clicking on a link to a Web
page.
It's best to KISS your removal instructions (Keep It So Simple).
That way, even casual email users can follow the instructions and
unsubscribe any time they wish. When you (or your list software)
gets the unsubscribe request, send a good-bye note, confirming
that the person has been removed from the list.
For example, if you decide to unsubscribe from our marketing
tips newsletter, The
Silver Bullet, you'll get a reply that
says:
"We're
sorry to see you go, but we hope you find success, health and
happiness in whatever you choose to do. Please feel welcome
to subscribe again at any time."
When people can't figure it out...
No
matter what you do, there will always be some people who
either can't read directions, or don't want to. They'll
just hit "reply" and tell you to unsubscribe.
If that happens, don't blow up and call the person a "dumb
twit " even if you think they are.
For further information on ethical marketing by e-mail, visit these Web sites:
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The spamCon Foundation (http://www.spamcon.com)
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Abuse.Net Anti-Spam Site (http://www.abuse.net)
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Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (http://www.cauce.org)
For more information
Scroll through the search box on the right side of this page for more ideas on how you can be a better marketer. For personal attention,
contact the Strategic Alliance team- - a guerilla marketing consulting
group based in Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Read here about how to run an ethical email marketing campaign.
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